New 2026 Prius XSE owner. The included charger comes with an adapter for 240V, yet the owner's manual only list 120V as an acceptable plug. Will the charger work with 240V? Also, the charger did not come with a cover for the plug, I'm assuming this was missing or does it not come with one? Also, at home, I will be charging outside, and I need to have an external outlet installed by an electrician. I am thinking housing the charger and cable in a cabinet. Has anyone else managed their cabling this way? Any recommendations for a cabinet?
can you post a pic of the adapter? it's kind of odd, because the evse can use 240v, though toyota doesn't recommend it. what kind of cover is missing? you can just put a weatherproof cover on the outside outlet, the evse plug is fine in any weather.
This is the charger. I talked to the dealership today and the charger does support 240V, which makes sense. Why else would it have a 240V plug.
That's because in the EU and other countries they never went down to 120V AC for safety so pretty much all electronic products mass produced on a global scale are designed to work on both 120V AC and 240V AC which doesn't change the power output just accommodates different inputs for different countries.
yes, it will cut the charge time in half. the charger is in the car, the evse provides the electricity and communications. if you have a 240v outlet at 16 amps or higher, use the adapter. prime can charge at higher amperage than 120v can supply
Gen1 plugin Prius (2012-2015) never had 240V AC charge ability in a home system according to my research... Can you clarify? Or maybe you found a charging station that had that ability when you owned it?
Getting a dual Level 1/Level 2 EVSE with an EV is probably the norm these days. It was an option for the Bolt EV and standard with EUV before sales ended. Maximum AC charge speed is limited by the charger installed in the car. The 'Primes' all have a faster Level 2 charge rate. Supply anything over 120V 15amp will reduce the time. Which is why the gen4 EVSE can adapted to using 240V 12amp, and it will reduce the charge time. Plenty of people here have done so, and have reported that.
it came with an L1 evse, but could handle L2. and the L1 could be converted for about 20 bucks if anyone so desired. on the prime, you just need a plug adapter, it's already set up inside
And L2 had a higher charging amp output? Or just same charging amps output but more energy efficient because it starts with a 240V AC input?
Don't know if PriusCamper will see this, he may still have me on "Ignore" - - - Yes it does. An EVSE does not transform the input voltage, but just passes it right on through to the output. So the car receives the higher voltage, slashing the charge time. On my 2024 RAV4, with an older Toyota EVSE without interchangeable plugs, its unofficial / off-label L2 (240V) mode is limited to the same 12 Amps as the L1 (120V) mode. But with twice the voltage, the power flow is doubled, thus halving the charge time. Though for my vintage, bring your own 'pirate' 240-120V adapter, readily available on Amazon (no reputable hardware or supply store will carry this code-violating item). I also have a separate third-party portable L1/L2 EVSE that can pass considerably higher current (and user set-able by mobile phone), though only in L2 mode. It has several outlet adapters, and a much heavier gauge cable than the Toyota EVSE, to safely handle the higher current. But when taking in 120V, it is internally limited to 12 Amps to conform to code and safety requirements for common 120V 15 amp home circuits and outlets.
L2 is plugged into a 240v outlet, allowing up to 80 amps, limited only by the charger in the car.how-many-amps-are-required-for-a-level-2-charging-station i was charging the pip at 16 amps. not sure if it could take more or not. primes can take more.
Weird, they must have changed the charger that was included. Looks nothing like the one I got with my '25.
I've got a Gen 4 Prime and here's my thoughts: If you've got to get a new circuit installed by an electrician, go for something like a 14-50. It's a 50 Amp outlet, but you're future-proofing the house, and adding a lot of utility. (That outlet can also be used to power a large air compressor or welder, or charge an EV). At least that was my reasoning. Of course, if you've got a long run between your electrical panel, the larger gauge wire you'll need will add quite a bit to the final price. A smaller outlet may only work for your Prime. The electric code requires new outlets for garages to be GFCI-protected, and any 240V outlet you're going to put in the garage will also be a dedicated circuit. A good place to start with the box, weather-tight connector, and what type of outlet to use would be with the electrician who's going to wire the new outlet. It's their license on the line, and if it fails inspection, it'll be up to them to fix it. Another good place to go is an electrical supply. They'll have the same things that your big box store has, and a lot more. The "charger" really isn't a charger; it's a charge adapter. It has some safety features, but for the most part, it passes the wall voltages to the plug on the connector on the car. (See SAE J1772 - Wikipedia). The actual charger is built into the car. This changes the AC voltage from the J1772 plug into DC, steps up the voltage, and provides it to the battery (along with a few other functions, like being able to run some of the 12 Volt systems in the car - fans that cool the traction batteries, and charge the 12 Volt auxiliary battery). That charger has 2 rates, selectable in your car's menu - MAX and 8 Amps. (I had a problem charging at MAX, because I also have a freezer in the garage that's also on the same breaker. Those are usually 15 Amp outlets, wired to a 20 Amp breaker. Charging at 16 Amps means that any current drawn by the other outlets on the circuit exceeding 4 Amps trips the breaker. It's the charger built into the car that limits the charging rate. This is the charge acceptance rate. Even if you plug the charge adapter into a higher amperage outlet, the most you'll be able to charge is the limit from the charger built into the Prius. When the charge adapter is fed only 120 Volts, there's only one line voltage that's fed to the charger in the car (that's Level 1 charging). If the charge adapter is connected to 240 Volts (level 2 charging), there are two active line voltage terminals that are fed to the car. The Prius is capable of drawing current on both line voltage terminals so with Level 2 charging it halves the charge times. For my Prime, 8A charges the car in 4 hours, MAX charges it in 3. Some J1772s also have a couple DC connections under the round connector. These go directly to the battery. The Gen 4, and I don't believe it's your Gen 4 has these either. That's what enables the fast charging for EVs. (It's also why DC fast chargers are complex pieces of electrical gear. They've got to determine the car's battery voltage and change their voltage to charge at that, with a lot of current - some fast chargers more than others. This is why it's such a crapshoot when it comes to charging an EV on a long road trip. What charge cables are on the chargers, what voltages they're able to charge at, and how much current they can provide at the voltage of the individual car's batteries, what other cars are charging at that station's chargers, and how the chargers are wired to the electrical utility company.) The charge adapter that came with my Gen 4 only had a 120V plug. Some have cut that off and wired it for 240V. I kept that charge adapter for road trips, so I didn't want to change the plug. Some have built adapters to change from a 240V outlet, to their charge adapter's 120V standard plug. I've done too much electrical work for me to feel comfortable doing things like that. That's another reason I got a separate charger adapter for the garage. I guess another feature I wanted was a longer cord. I did pay a few extra $ to get a charge adapter with a longer cable. I have more flexibility, and since my outlet (and charge adapter) is near the front of my garage, I can pull my car out of the garage, and the cord will still reach more places in my driveway. My charge adapter's J1772 plug has a weathertight cap. As long as I don't leave the thing in a puddle of water, I'd be fine I'd still not want to leave the thing out in the weather for the sun and rain to deteriorate. One thing I like about my arrangement is that I'm not hanging the whole works outside. I can run the cable under the garage door and not leave the whole thing outside for someone to unplug or take off with. Hope this all makes some sense.
